


Candid Flame

by Nestra



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canadian Shack, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-19
Updated: 2012-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-29 18:56:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nestra/pseuds/Nestra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg dropped his bag by the door with a thump.  “It’s not London, there’s no dead bodies, and most importantly, there’s no bloody Sherlock.”  No season 2 spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Candid Flame

**Author's Note:**

> Beta (and half of the plot) by shrift.

“Really,” John said, “it’s not half-bad.”

Greg dropped his bag by the door with a thump. “It’s not London, there’s no dead bodies, and most importantly, there’s no bloody Sherlock.”

“How long do you think it will take him to find us?”

“Two days? If we’re lucky?”

“But he promised us a week’s head start!”

Greg looked at him pityingly, and John let his head sag down until his chin touched his chest. “Right. Sorry. I’ll unpack the groceries if you start the fire.”

After a particularly contentious argument with Sherlock, in which he’d insulted John’s intelligence and Greg’s career path and then compared them both to overindulged lapdogs, John had emailed his second cousin Stephen and asked for the indefinite loan of his cabin.

“You’re not going without me,” Greg had threatened. “Do you have any idea how unbearable he’ll be with you gone?”

Two steaks, two potatoes, two bowls of salad, and several glasses of wine later, John sprawled on the couch in front of the fire and roasted pleasantly while Greg did the washing-up. He closed his eyes and listened to the domestic sounds of dishes clanking and water running and fire crackling – and absolutely nothing else.

“Last time I made dinner for Sherlock,” he said, pitching his voice above the noise from the kitchen, “I got a lecture about the patterns of decay in body farms around the world. And he didn’t wash up.”

Greg came into the room, wiping his hands on a dish towel and grabbing his wine glass from the table. “It’s not like you don’t know what to expect.”

John sighed and topped off Greg’s wine glass, and then his for good measure, because it was true. And normally it was worth it, the absent-mindedness that shaded into abuse, the focus that excluded most human rituals like courtesy and empathy and generally not being an asshole.

“I think we should make this a regular event,” he said to Greg. “A holiday from Sherlock. Maybe in a warm-weather climate next time.”

Greg settled down next to him on the couch and reached over to clink his wine glass against John’s. “Florida’s nice. Or the south of Italy.”

They sat in silence for a while; John closed his eyes and let the heat of the fire make him drowsy. Next to him, Greg shifted, and his leg touched John’s. If John listened, he could hear Greg breathing, and he realized that it was no longer the fire making his face hot.

He kept his eyes shut as the couch cushions shifted next to him and dipped under Greg’s weight until they were pressed together from shoulder to thigh. When Greg’s hand touched his face, he leaned into the pressure.

“Two days, you think?” He opened his eyes to meet Greg’s. He was smiling.

“I could make a call and have him arrested.”

“Yeah,” John said, as Greg began kissing his neck. “Why don’t you do that?”


End file.
